After reading these exchanges and remembering reading something about this
elsewhere some time ago, I fortuitously stumbled across a paperback book
called *The Beethoven Encyclopedia* compiled by Paul Nettl, a professor of
musicology at Indiana University.  It has an entry "Jews" from which I'm
excerpting the following:

   "Schindler is responsible for having stamped Beethoven as an
   anti-Semite.  After Wagner had published his ill-famed pamphlet *Das
   Judentum in der Musik*...Schindler immediately fell in line with
   Wagner.  He expressed himself against Moscheles...thus: 'There was
   a sky-high barrier between Moscheles and Beethoven which made it
   impossible for the Master to associate with him; it was Beethoven's
   hatred of the children of Israel in the field of Art, because they
   favored the new trend of making big business of music.'....Schindler's
   hatred of Moscheles was the result of his jealousy of the Jewish
   pianist, who in his edition of the Beethoven sonatas...claimed personal
   acquaintance with Beethoven between 1808 and 1820, when he, under
   the Master's supervision, worked on the piano score of *Fidelio*.
   Beethoven's occasional derogatory remarks about Jews should not be
   taken too seriously.  There were many Jews with whom Beethoven was
   on friendly terms: the violinist Heinrich Eppinger; Dr.  Joseph
   Eppinger, who introduced Huettenbrenner to Beethoven; the bankers
   Alexander and Raymund Wetzlar von Plankenstern, the latter on good
   terms with Mozart because of the performance of the *Marriage of
   Figaro*.  Other Jewish personalities closely associated with Beethoven
   were the banker and director of the Austrian National Bank, Josef
   Baron von Henickstein; the bankers Offenheimer and Herz, employers
   of Franz Oliva and Bernhard; Baron Eskeles; Heinrich von Pareira,
   son-in-law of Baron Nathan Arnstein; Marie Bernhardine Eskeles, later
   the Countess Wimpffen, and an ardent admirer of Beethoven; the family
   of the London banker Goldschmidt; the Berlin and Paris publishers
   Adolf Martin and Moritz Adolf Schlesinger; the Viennese bank clerk
   Leringer; the physician and poet, Alois Jeitteles of Bruenn, and his
   cousin, the writer Ignaz Jeitteles of Prague; Giacomo Meyerbeer and
   Ferdinand Hiller, Adolf Bernhard Marx, Beethoven's biographer and
   editor of the *Berliner Allgem.  Musikalische Zeitung* was [sic]
   praised by Beethoven in a letter to Schlesinger as particularly
   'witty,' and last but not least Moscheles.  There are some occasional
   anti-Semitic remarks to be found in Conversaiton books and letters.
   Hoever, Beethoven was asked by the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde in
   Vienna in 1825 to write a cantata for the dedication of their new
   synagogue in the Seidenstaettergasse, which is even now the main
   synagogue in Vienna.  According to a conversation of the Master with
   his brother Johann, the Viennese Jews intended to open the synagogue
   with a choral cantata composed by Beethoven and they promised him
   ample remuneration.  One of the Rothschild bankers was involved in
   the deal.  The text of the cantata had already been handed to the
   Master but unfortunately he did not compose it; Kapellmeister Joseph
   Drechsler...did.  Schilling in his Encyclopedia enumerated three
   cantatas by Drechsler, one for the dedication of the Viennese Synagogue.
   It is interesting that Beethoven's C sharp minor Quartet Op. 131 in
   its No. 6 *Adagio quasi un poco Andante*, measures 1-5, show a
   striking similarity to the famous *Kol Nidre*, a fact already noticed
   by Emil Breslauer.  There is a possibility that Beethoven, searching
   for original Hebrew melodies, came across that famous theme....Recently
   Kaznelson has claimed thar Rahel Levin, married to Varnhagen von
   Ense, sould be considered Beethoven's Distant Beloved...."

Walter Meyer